This photo from Ellis Island around 1910 shows an immigrant taking an intelligence test involving shapes. Tests like these were used to justify pseudoscientific racism and eugenics.

The Rorschach test, invented in 1921, aimed to understand people based on what they see in an ambiguous inkblot. This photo is from 1951. The test is still widely used today, though it has "little validity as a diagnostic tool."

The Thematic Apperception Test, invented in the 1930s, asked people to analyze what’s happening in an ambiguous image. Here's a woman taking it in 1950.

A psychologist and his patient, USA, ca. 1950
Corbis

The Thematic Apperception Test is still used today. What do you think is happening here?

from The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
Redstone Press collection

The Szondi Test, invented in 1935, measured peoples’ response to portraits of patients "diagnosed" as homosexuals, sadists, epileptics, hysterics, catatonics, paranoids, depressives, and maniacs. It has been repudiated for a lot of reasons.

The sinister-looking Szondi Test kit, with cards and analytic table. If your psychotherapist turns up with one of these, make an excuse and leave.
Courtesy of Redstone Press

The Make a Picture Story Test, invented in 1942, asked subjects to place cut-out dolls in a scene and then come up with a story.

Make a Picture Story Test (MAPS)

So many possibilities ...

Make a Picture Story Test (MAPS)

The Feeling Test asks subjects to say who they identify with most in a scene filled cartoon figures. Widely used today, it’s seen as a useful way to help people, often children, describe emotions.

The Family Relationship Test, created for “Psychobook,” asks people to pick a drawing that represents their relationship to their family.

“The Family Relationship Test” is excerpted from Psychobook: Games, Tests, Questionnaires, Histories edited by Julian Rothenstein with an Introduction by Lionel Shriver published by Princeton Architectural Press (2016)
All drawings by Adam Dant